viii, 168 pages ; 24 cm

Helping and Healing looks at the ways a religious perspective shapes the healing relationship and the ethics of that relationship. Pellegrino and Thomasma seek to clarify the role of religious belief in health care by providing a moral basis for such commitment as well as a balancing role for reason. This book establishes a common ground for believers and skeptics alike in their dedication to relieve suffering by showing that helping and healing require an involvement in the religious values of patients. It clearly argues that religion provides crucial insights into medical practice and morality that cannot be ignored, even in our morally heterogeneous society. Physicians, nurses, administrators, clergy, theologians, and other health professionals and church leaders will find that this volume will help them reflect on the role of religion in the health care ministry and make a religious commitment integral to their professional lives

Translated from Italian

Includes bibliographical references and indexes

Introduction : The aim of this book ; Crucial definitions ; A betrayal of the promise of medicine ; Secular and religious perspectives ; Ignoring fundamental values -- 1. Health and illness : Source of meaning ; Becoming ill or disabled ; Job as metaphor ; A contemporary structure of illness ; The wounded healer ; Why is it I who must suffer? -- 2. Caring and curing : The relation of caring and curing ; What does it mean to care? ; The moment of clinical truth ; Refurbishing the ideal of a profession ; Coping in trust -- 3. Religion and the healing transaction : Contributions to the healing transaction ; Suffering and healing -- 4. The principle of vulnerability : Vulnerability as a principle: general ethics ; Vulnerability as a principle: health care ethics ; The missing perspective -- 5. Religion and the principles of medical ethics : Christocentric health care ethics ; The religious perspective ; The limitations of contemporary biomedical ethics ; The content ; Motivation ; Ordering principle ; Medicine's contribution to religious ethics -- 6. Medicine as a calling : The tradition and its mutations ; Genesis of the mutations ; The internal morality of the professions ; Vocation and career ; The moral drift and moral philosophy -- 7. A community of healing : Is healing an option? ; The challenges ; The justifications ; Secular and "sacred" healing ; Healing as prophetic ; The community of healers ; Duties of the community of healers -- 8. Love and justice in the health ministry: from profession to vocation, philosophical perspectives : The nature of illness and healing ; The root principles of philosophical medical ethics -- 9. Love and justice in the health ministry: from profession to vocation, theological perspectives : The theological perspective ; Christocentric health care ethics: from profession to vocation ; The call of the whole church to the healing ministry

plus-circle Add Review

comment

Reviews